Starting the CCR: Research for Q1 (Genre and Representation)

    Welcome back! Although I'm almost done with my film opening, which is such a relief, my work is not yet done. I have to work on creating my CCR, or creative critical reflection, which I have been preparing for using all my blog posts so far. There are four questions that I will cover through two different media productions (which I will discuss ideas for next week), but in this blog post I will be going over question 1, "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?" So for this blog post, I will break this question into its two parts: the conventions and the representation.

Conventions I used:

    Although horror is a very diverse genre, there are some typical conventions used (many in mise-en-scène) that I decided to use and not challenge. I decided not to challenge conventions because my whole film is a juxtaposition in itself from a very old thing (tarot cards) and a newer thing (social media) and focuses on more of the current time, so I relied on key conventions to ensure my film would still stay in the lines of a horror film.

    Horror films typically include a symbolic prop, specific lighting (low-key, bright, and dark), as well as a mix of all types of sounds both to build suspense and heighten tension. In my film, I use all of these conventions. My prop is the tarot cards. I use a cool hue color scheme and very bright and dark lighting, only low-key lighting, and sound to build tension as Nicky does her card reading. These are aspects found in many, if not most, horror movies, which is why I included them. An example of a well-known movie with these conventions is Scream.

Ex: The Scream Franchise

    Scream, as shown above, uses a symbolic prop (the ghost face mask), muted and low-key lighting, and includes a lot of versatile sound to evoke fear. Scream is such a popular horror film that really uses, rather than challenges, typical conventions, which is why I mostly used conventions as well.

Representation

    Considering my film is all about social media trends and teenagers, the social group that is focused on is teenagers, and the issue is social media trends. Being a teen myself, I believe the way I represented teens was a pretty accurate and fair depiction. Most teenagers are addicted to social media and their phones, which is why the film being centered around teens following a social media trend and the negative consequences. I believe that social media trends often are negative, leading to many issues, so centering my film on exposing social media trends, painting them in a bad light, helps confront the social issue head-on while also representing teenagers.